Star Rises Over Lake Worth

The Trojans' relatively inexperienced QB is on an accelerated learning curve

August 31, 2007|By Stacy Hicklin Staff Writer

Coach Errick Lowe heard the gossip. It spread throughout the halls, the classrooms and sometimes even the stands. He had a difficult time avoiding the constant chatter regarding who should be the starting quarterback for his Lake Worth football team.

For weeks, the same name continued to come up in conversation after conversation. Star Jackson this, Star Jackson that. Problem was, Lowe had neither seen nor spoken to one of the most talked-about athletes at his school.

However, after word reached Lowe that Jackson made the varsity basketball team as a freshman, his curiosity got the better of him. One night he arrived early to a Lake Worth basketball game to see the player he had heard so much about.

Without a roster, Lowe picked Jackson out of the group a few minutes into warmups.

"Star just had the athletic ability that you don't find all the time in a young kid," Lowe said. "I watched the way that he ran, the way that he jumped and the way that he could maneuver his body in traffic. I knew that he had the toughness to [play football] and the ability."

After the game ended, Lowe waited for Jackson outside the locker room. He introduced himself and told Jackson: "I've been looking for a quarterback and I think I've found him."

Two and a half years later, Lowe's discovery, and patience with his discovery, has made him the envy of nearly every coach in Palm Beach County.

Diamond in rough

As long as Jackson can remember, he has dreamed of playing major college football. The problem was, he didn't know if deep down he actually believed it would happen.

He spent his childhood playing sports with friends and neighbors, but as he grew older, it was the hours spent playing street football that he enjoyed the most.

Despite his love for football, Jackson's mom, Harriett Herman, forbid her son from playing organized football until he reached high school. Herman feared her son could be seriously injured at a young age.

Further delaying his gridiron dreams, Jackson broke his ankle the summer before his freshman year at Lake Worth. His mother told him that he would not be playing football that fall.

Jackson tucked away his dreams once again, assuming he would have to wait until spring to see if he could make the team.

Thinking back to his first interaction with Lowe at the basketball game, Jackson laughs and recalls being a bit dazed, yet giddy about the high expectations his future coach had for him.

A few weeks later, the two traveled to Orlando to see a quarterback doctor for some one-on-one attention. The level of improvement Jackson made in just four hours left Lowe floored at his player's accelerated learning curve.

That progress continued into the next fall when, as a sophomore, Jackson was penciled in as the team's starting quarterback.

"I always wanted to play football ... but I never thought I would be able to just come out my sophomore year and start on varsity," Jackson said. "Coach Lowe really believed in me."

Quick study

It's early August and the Lake Worth football team is scattered across its field working through position drills. In the center of the field are the quarterbacks.

Jackson stands in the middle, calmly leading his teammates through a workout. He stops frequently to demonstrate proper mechanics.

His motions are smooth, powerful and confident, yet somewhat effortless.

This wasn't always the way Jackson looked. He's the first to admit that spring practices his freshman year and his play early in his sophomore season were shaky.

"It was a lot of growing pains at first, but throwing the ball - that came easy," Lowe said. "His toughness and agility, those things came easy. It was the small things we had to work on, like awareness and footwork."

Jackson, who has put on 40 pounds of muscle in the past two years, said it took three or four games into his sophomore season to become comfortable behind center. By the end of that season, Jackson had improved enough to lead his team in giving eventual state champion Palm Beach Gardens a major scare in the first round of the playoffs.

While Jackson struggled through growing pains, one thing that was never a problem was gaining his teammates' respect. His confidence and passion for the game made him a natural leader. Add to that his outgoing nature, willingness to be involved in everyday tomfoolery with his teammates and tendency to make everyone laugh, and he is one of the most-liked players in the locker room.

These days, however, Lowe and Jackson dedicate more time to looking at film and talking about the game than working on mechanics.

"He's smart enough now that we can play mind games," Lowe said with a smile. "We don't have to spend a whole lot of time with 'you have to put your arm here.' We have to get mental and talk about different coverages and throw things at him to see how he reacts."